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First of all, I have to apologize for keeping you hanging if you’ve been following this little exterior update journey of mine. I’ve had a couple of people asking when I planned to share the finished product, and that day is here!!

The last post was over a month ago and the painting was in progress at that time. It’s been done for a couple of weeks now, but I’ve held off sharing because we had some trouble getting the tree stump in front cut down completely with our small chain saw, and had to call in reinforcements. In other words, I had to wait until my dad could help the hub finish the job because it pains me to show you an ‘After’ photo with half a dead tree blocking the front porch. You know me… I like pretty things.

ANYWAY… I will keep you in suspense no longer, and I’m very excited to show you what feels like a brand new house:

I warned you when we started this exterior update journey that it would be a dramatic change. Seriously though! It has been a LONG time coming, and I am just so giddy every time I pull into the driveway. I LOVE IT!

The color we chose is absolutely the best warm charcoal gray. Sometimes it looks lighter or darker in certain lights, but it always looks great to me. The robin’s-egg-blue front door is the perfect focal point now that you can actually see the porch. We’ve had so many compliments already, and have even had people drive by taking photos and one lady who stopped to ask about the color because she liked it so much. The great response from our friends and neighbors has made it even more rewarding for me. And after a five-year wait, that’s a lot!

Our painter did such a great job, and our carpenter was amazing too. He even came back at the last-minute to add an extra bit of trim to one spot that was bothering me. It was a minor crisis avoided. Most of the work he did occurred last fall. We had known for a while that the exterior needed a lot of repairs before we could even think about painting. The siding was rotting in several places, one of the bedroom windows leaked and was all messed up, and there was just a lot to do. Remember this situation?

Not pretty.

Once all that was done, I had the carpenter add a few extra trim touches to give the house a little more of a custom-look, and allow us to use more than one paint color. I knew we would be going dramatically dark, and wanted to break up the planes a little to avoid the charcoal becoming too overwhelming. Our carpenter added horizontal boards across all the peaks (We missed one over the garage and that was what he came back to add later on while the paint was going up!), creating a triangle that we painted a slightly lighter gray.

I love how it gives a craftsman vibe to the exterior, even though this isn’t a true craftsman house. I’m toying with adding a few more craftsman trim details (down the line) to amp that up even more.

This is my favorite side of the house because of all the layers. Sadly, it faces away from the street, so no one but me sees it. But just knowing it’s there and looks awesome is enough for me. It will look even better next year when my baby plants fill in more! Here is a before and after of that side:

Here is the back of the house. I love how it sets off the painted deck (Which we will be repainting again next year… but that’s another story.) One of the special requests I made of our painter was to paint all the trim, gutters, soffits, and eaves around the whole house white, including all the window trim. This is not common in our area, as usually the front of the house has trim painted, but the sides and back and soffits are all the same color. Don’t ask me why. I HATE that. I could not live with having this whole back of the house be one big dark box, and I think the front would have looked too dark and flat with the soffits not painted white. So my painter thought I was a little crazy, but he did such a great job with all the detail work, and it was 100% worth the extra money to me.

In case you’ve missed any of this exterior update journey, here are some links:

We have a few more small things I’d like to do out here. I plan to replace the doorbell soon and add a little more definition to the stonework out front. And then down the line, I’d like to tweak the front landscaping a little, bulk up the porch column a bit, possibly add a porch railing, and update the large front windows… dreams. We also still need to hang new house numbers… which are currently sitting just inside the front door. And then there’s always the whole backyard and one side of the house that still need landscaping help desperately. But at least the front is 95% done! Yay!!

Becky

Diane

Thank you so much! It’s one of those colors that is difficult to pinpoint. I guess I’d call it a deep warm gray. It definitely has brown undertones, which gives it a rich look, but I don’t think you’d look at the house and call it brown. Not sure if that helps at all!

Joanna

I wish I could! It was this color when we moved in and we bought the house from the bank, so we didn’t even know the garage door code, let alone the shingle color. :/ I would describe it as a medium brown?? But it’s not a very redish brown. I assume the roof is getting up there in age though, so we’ll likely be replacing it at some point.

Thanks, Sandy! I agree that would look nice. It’s kind of a tricky spot, because it bumps out there, and on one section there is actually a roll-up awning that we can pull out over the deck. So we would have to remove that before we could add another piece of trim there. Maybe someday though! I’m not a fan of the awning at all so I wouldn’t be sad to see it go. ;)

Thank you!! I can’t believe you did yours yourself. I don’t think I would have the patience or stamina for that. It would have ended up with one coat of patchy peeling paint this time next year…haha. Great job!!